Page 49 of I Dream of Danger (Ghost Ops #2)

Elle shifted, opened her legs further, brought him to her and nearly cried out as he slid into her, hot and hard and deep. They both stilled for a moment, as if moving would be sensory overkill.

Nick raised his torso up on his forearms and watched her eyes as he started moving in her.

Slowly at first, watching every inch of her face as she watched his.

How wonderful to watch him, to see the pleasure she gave him while feeling the slow honey of the pleasure he gave her.

She locked her ankles in the small of his back, loving the feeling of his hard, thick muscles moving against her, in her.

She moved to kiss his sweaty shoulder, eyes closed. I love you so much, Nick , she thought, and he suddenly stilled.

She opened her eyes to find his face slack with shock. His eyes glowed with an eerie light, skin tight across his cheekbones, neck tendons taut with tension.

“I love you too, Elle,” he said. She brought her hand to her mouth in shock.

I heard you. In my head. His voice. Inside her head.

I hear you too.

Nick kissed her savagely, slamming into her almost violently. Hard, fast, furious, as if he were trying to crawl inside her body, as if he could physically make them one.

Now, Nick.

His movements became even faster as they clung to each other desperately and just as desperately climaxed. She could feel her internal muscles clenching hard around him, as if to draw him even more deeply inside her.

He slumped on her, limp and sweaty, holding her so tightly she could barely breathe.

When he whispered sleep in her head, she did.

Sleep took her like a beloved friend, and she fell endlessly into its embrace. Images bloomed, bright and surreal, the stuff of dreams.

And then—and then she Dreamed.

She flew high above the earth, pure being, unrestricted by the rules of space and time. No emotion just purpose, arrowing straight to a city by the bay, to invisible cages and the desperate faces of friends held by monsters, friends who had lost hope, friends who called to her…

She bolted up in bed. Nick sat up too, turning a sober, serious face to her.

“I know where they are,” she said, and he nodded.

Palo Alto

Jon crouched in the bushes a block from Elle’s home. He checked his handheld. It had a special screened monitor that was visible only to him via a lens on his night vision binoculars. It emitted no light that could be seen by anyone else.

He checked the images sent by the overhead drone.

First, he checked himself, pleased but not surprised to see that he didn’t show up on any part of the spectrum—not visually, not in IR, and not in thermal.

He was covered head to toe in stealth gear that wouldn’t be available to civilians.

Technically, it wasn’t available to him either.

He’d liberated it from a military installation in Texas.

The drone showed that the neighborhood was empty, no security goons held behind to keep an eye out for a lone woman scientist who might want to go back to her home. He’d have welcomed a fight.

These were the same fuckers who had tortured his commanding officer and three of the best teammates in the world.

Jon had to stop for a second to breathe his rage back out.

Rage did no one any good. Just when he thought he had himself under control, though, a vision of Elle’s friend Sophie flashed in his head.

She didn’t look like Catherine or Elle, but she had their look. Smart, gentle, guileless. Someone who worked for the good of humanity. And beautiful, on top of that. The world didn’t grow too many women like that, and now she was hunted, too.

She, too, could end up like Lucius—a tormented animal, a lab rat hounded to death.

Goddamn.

He waited another second to get himself back under control.

That was a surprise. Jon had plenty of self-control.

He knew exactly what kind of face he presented to the world.

Relaxed, cool, hip. Mac and Nick—now they looked like warriors.

Cold and tough and fearsome. Not Jon. He cultivated that loose, friendly look.

Those who didn’t know him probably thought he mellowed out on drugs.

They couldn’t know how much he hated drugs.

And they couldn’t know he was a soldier who had killed many times.

Jon kept himself detached, doing what he knew had to be done, but more like a pest controller stamping out cockroaches than a man on a crusade.

He didn’t feel cool or detached when he thought of Sophie Daniels in the hands of the men who’d tortured his commanding officer and his teammates, though.

He felt white hot rage, so powerful it distorted his senses.

Fuck this , he thought. Get yourself under control .

He wasn’t doing anyone any good wallowing in his emotions, imagining even now Elle’s pretty friend strapped down to a table, being cut, being hurt. ..

Shit .

In Ghost Ops they’d been taught to control their autonomous system.

They were shooters, and could slow their own heartrate down to take the shot.

He crouched for another full minute, eyes closed, slowing down his breathing, taking down his heartbeat, resolutely not thinking of pretty Sophie Daniels being hurt.

So he could go after the fuckers who’d taken her and rip their hearts out.

Okay. His eyes popped open and he moved forward like a laser beam focused on the mission.

The neighborhood was a quiet one of mostly traditional houses.

He ghosted from bush to tree to car, certain that no one saw him and certain that he wasn’t showing up on any surveillance video.

When he had Elle’s small house in sight, he stopped and tapped on his handheld.

This was his own invention—the electronic equivalent of radar to detect any hidden detonators or tripwires around the house.

It had a radius of 500 meters and when the monitor remained blank, he moved forward.

He could be fast now. In a moment, he’d picked Elle’s pathetic lock and was inside her house.

It had been trashed, just as Catherine’s house had been trashed. It had been done systematically, almost scientifically. Everything breakable had been broken, everything soft had been slashed, everything electronic had been smashed.

Well, she wasn’t coming back here. That door was closed forever.

She was with Nick, and Nick was part of Haven on Mount Blue.

Jon took a few photos for Elle, sent them to the war room, then moved into the bathroom.

Sure enough, there it was, on the sink. The sensor that had been in Elle’s arm.

The goons who’d trashed her house had simply left it there.

It wasn’t going to take them to Elle, it wasn’t going to take them anywhere but her empty bathroom.

He picked it up with tweezers Catherine had given him and studied it, wincing when he saw blood and bits of flesh clinging to the tendrils underneath the chip. That must have hurt like a bitch to pull out.

The chip itself was tiny, a hard composite shell presenting no visible opening.

It was a radio transmitter, sure, but presumably it had to have a facility for a physical data dump.

He brought the chip close to his goggles, tapped the side, turning them into powerful microscopes and ah!

There it was. The tiniest of portals and, yes! He had the fuckers.

He had the thinnest fiber optic thread in existence, and with the help of the tweezers, fit it into the portal and started downloading.

The data started appearing immediately on his monitor.

First physical data going back three months.

covering every aspect of Elle’s body, and then, at the end, a code connecting this tracking sensor with every other.

Ten other sensors, for the ten other poor sons of bitches who were in the hands of monsters, including Sophie.

He overlaid the data onto a GPS map and stared at the screen for a full minute, breathing in and breathing out. When he was sure he had his voice under control, he tapped his comms unit and spoke.

“I know where they are.”